Sunday 12/08/2018 - Tony Rixon's Short Pole Series - Round Three - Todber Manor - Hillview Lake

Bela and I stopped in the old Little Chef hoping for one of their breakfasts. We were disappointed to find that they were closing down that night and reopening as Greggs, and were only offering breakfast sandwiches. We both had two sandwiches and a cup of tea/coffee. The sandwiches were nice until I got the bill £24.84!! Needless to say it would be our last visit here. The McMahons bill came to £50, they did have two big scoffers with them!

After a look around Jon's fully stocked tackle shop it was into the draw box with peg 60 selected I was hoping it would have some wind on it and luckily it did, but only just as the wind was blowing right to left into peg 54 where Two Pots was pegged. For company I had grinner Gordon Cannings on end section peg 61 and match organiser Tony Rixon on 59. So what was the best way to recoup the cost of breakfast? Two choices Carp with paste or Silvers with caster and GB. Set up a 6 x 11 shot Stu Barnett paste float to fish top-set plus one at 11 o'clock in three foot of water. The Ronnie rig and a 4x12 winter in case the wind was too difficult for the Ronnie rig. Bait table hard 4's, paste, GB, casters, micro and live maggots.

Tony and I thought the Carp would have a go today, so I decided initially to "test pot" the paste and hard fours it I caught Carp I would stay with, but if the paste was Silvered out I would switch to the Silvers. First put in the float shot under due to a liner that wasn't a Silver. With the toss pot recharged, in again and this time I caught a 3 lb Mirror. Next put-in repeat. However, the small amount of feed brought the Carp up in the water, which resulted in lots of liners. It was obvious that there were loads of feeding Carp in the swim. The Silvers wouldn't get a serious look in today. I decided to come shorter in shallower water by going to top-set only allowing me to take 6 inches off the depth. This helped but wasn't the whole story as I was still getting frustrated by liners and foulers. So decided to put big pots of caster/maggot/micro mix in. This again wasn't the whole story but it was the best I could come up with, but did improve things immensely. I caught the fishery stamp fish of around 3 lb regularly. I started to loose feed the margin with caster  to see if I could attract Carp in the very shallow water. Within minutes there were very large tails waving catch me if you can. I quickly Set up a 0.2 SB paste float set at 6 inches, which was even so over depth. First try I had a 10 lb Carp followed by two smaller ones before I started foul hooking them. The bigger Carp are certainly crafty in the margins by keeping their heads against the bank whist the circle the feed. As Tony pointed out I was catching more out on the top-set so switched back and caught Carp to the end regularly and as the end came nearer the fish got bigger. I can say the Carp here really like the caster.

My fish weighed in at 197 lb 1 oz for a section win and fourth overall. A great venue however, fish racing doesn't appeal to me, much prefer the winter Carp fishing on such venues like it's name's sake in Tewkesbury. Bela and I are fishing the winter series pairs at Todber again this year - can't wait. The lowest weight in my section was 107 lb!

The match was won by "Stretch" Joe Mcmahon (pictured right collecting just enough to pay for the breakfast from hold your breath in - Tony Rixon) with 268 lb 10 oz from inform peg 43. Joe fished down his RH edge for most of the match at top-set plus one in 10 inches of water on corn. Joe fed four tins and 2 kg of GB.


The Silvers was won by Ryan Shipp (pictured right with silvers runner up young Freddie Wojtyla) with 26 lb 8 oz from peg 37. Ryan caught mostly on caster. And a big well done to Freddie for his first pick-up of many I hope.

Twenty seven fished today and there was twenty ton weights?

At last the first double bubble for Bela's new van as bela picked up second in section by double defaut!!

Result:

Weigh Sheets: